Blog – Page 2 – STELLAR INSURGENCY

Political Maps & Post-processing

Posted on July 4, 2021by Tensorial

This time I am going to give some information on political maps and some graphical improvements I have been working on.

In a continuous attempt to make the gameplay more interesting and add some diversity, the galaxy was separated into five sectors including four quadrants each one resembling a galactic spiral arm and a central area. The four quadrants are the “civilized” part of the galaxy where the three main factions and the pirates reside, while the central area is more isolated from the rest and considerably more desolated. Each one of those sectors has its own prominent resources so the player will have to travel to acquire them.

The galaxy is separated into five sectors including four quadrants and a central region

Each one of the three main factions occupies a specific area of the map which is not strictly correlated to a specific sector (the pirates are scattered into four quadrants) and has to compete with the rest (although there could be alliances).

Below: Three factions and the pirates are competing for space in the galactic arena. The player may seek for an alliance with one of them or more. Also a switch to turn off the star lane map was added. Hovering the mouse on a solar system still shows the shortest lane route. I know that some space game enthusiasts are not very fond of star lanes however they do a good job in adding a strategic depth to the map and it would still be possible for the player to travel to the solar system of choice.

Three factions are competing for space in the galactic arena

Below: The galaxy with star lane map switched off.

Below: The galaxy with star lane map switched on.

After experimenting a little bit, I found that probably the best post-processing effect for a space scene is bloom but others like blur and grain may be helpful (although some may disagree). Bloom adds some vividness to the space scene and makes luminous objects like stars look more realistic. Motion blur makes fast moving objects look smoother while film grain makes the scene appear more cinematic (because for reasons we want our games to appear more cinematic). I know that some may disagree on the necessity of the two last ones and that is why there will be an option to disable each one of them (also for performance reasons).

Below are two images with those effects enabled although they don’t look as good when static and it is not easy to capture motion blur.

Added post-processing effects including Bloom, Blur, grain

Space scene with bloom, grain and lens enabled.

Thank you for reading.

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Formations & Waypoints

Posted on April 29, 2021by Tensorial

Hello everybody, in this update I will write about formations and waypoints.

In Stellar Insurgency, a selection of ships can have three types of formations:

Shape formation
Free – Bound formation
Free formation

In the first type of formation the selected ships have a predefined shape (e.g. an arrow) of formation. In this type of formation usually the fighters and bombers go first and then the largest vessels follow (e.g. battleships and cruisers) and last come the weakest ships like freighters and other non-combatant vessels.

In Free – Bound formation the ships don’t form any specific shape, however they all move with the speed of the slowest ship in the selection.

These two types of formations help to keep the fleet together without scattering and therefore the fleet has additional protection against enemy ships.

And finally in free formation every ship goes on its own, moving with its maximum speed which depends on the quality of the equipped engine and the type of the hull.

The player can also set a waypoint queue for the selected points by pressing the LCTRL button and pointing with the mouse one or more points in the action scene.

The selected ships are moving in 3d space with the arrow formation

Another type of formation, first come the fighters/bombers and other military ships and last are the ftreighters.

Free – Bound formation. In Free – Bound formation the ships don’t form any specific shape, however they all move with the speed of the slowest ship in the selection.

A waypoint queue for the selected points can be set by pressing the LCTRL button and pointing with the mouse one or more points in the action scene.

Thank you for reading.

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Intel & The Map

Posted on April 5, 2021by Tensorial

In this post I write about military intelligence (that is according to Wikipedia, information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions) and I will provide additional information on the map screen.

Military Intelligence

Each player or AI spacecraft has a Sensor component (presumably). Every Sensor component has an inner and an outer range which are defined by a sphere with center the position of the Sensor on the spacecraft and radius the length of the range. If a hostile, neutral or friendly ship is outside the sphere that is defined by the outer range it is invisible, if it is within the outer range but outside of the inner range it shows as a blurred square and if it is within the inner range, its hull type is visible along with additional information.

The length of each range depends on the Sensor type. More advanced Sensors are capable of scanning larger areas. The Sensor component can be upgraded from the fleet retrofit screen if a suitable upgrade is present in one of the fleet’s cargo bays (see previous devDiary), or it can be removed completely (empty slot) and the ship will remain without sensors (not a good idea). In addition each sensor component has a level (with higher levels corresponding to more advanced Sensors). More advanced sensors will show additional info in the fleet retrofit screen. Obviously the amount and quality of information that is shown depends on the maximum level of the Sensor that scans the selected spacecraft.

Each spacecraft has a Sensor component (presumably). Each Sensor has two ranges, the inner and outer range. If a hostile, neutral or friendly ship is outside the outer range it is invisible, if it is within the outer range but outside of the inner range is shows as a blurred square and if it is within the inner range its hull type is visible along with other information. On the upper left part of the screen there is a group of toggles. One of the toggles sets whether the sensors ranges will be visible if the player selects or hovers over one of the visible spacecrafts.

The fleet screen where information about player’s fleet and (left side) non-player fleets (right side) is shown. At the right side a non player spaceship is selected. This spaceship is scanned from one of payer’s sensors with level 1 (in the parenthesis). The number in the parenthesis shows the maximum level of the player’s Sensor that scans the selected spacecraft.

One of our spaceships has a sensor of level 2 and it is scanning the selected non-player spacecraft. More advanced sensors will show additional info in the fleet screen. Obviously the amount of available information depends on the max level of the Sensor that scans the selected spacecraft. The number in the parenthesis shows the maximum level of the Sensor that scans the selected spacecraft.

The Map

The map shows every discovered solar system in the galaxy and it is accessible from the action screen or the missions screen (more on that in a future post) or pressing the Tab key. The navigation on the map screen is similar to that of the action screen (i.e. the map screen is 3d). Traveling between solar systems takes place through star lanes following the shortest path (for more information and video see previous post).

If the player’s fleet has visited a specific solar system, its contents are also shown (i.e. planets asteroids etc. but not spaceships) otherwise a question mark appears within its limits to indicate that this solar system has not been visited yet. Each time there is only one active solar system, the one that the player’s fleet is in. Every visible spaceship and its position on the active solar system appears also on the map and within the confines of the active solar system. If the player’s fleet moves to another solar system, any foreign fleets become invisible because of lack of intel but the previous position of planetoids (i.e. planets, asteroids) remains.

On the upper left part of the screen there is a group of toggles. Each toggle shows useful information about the state of the galaxy, specifically:

Show reachable solar systems
Show faction borders
Show names
Show enemies
Show player fleet
Show fleet destination

The map shows every discovered solar system and the positions and types of the visible spacecrafts. he navigation on the map screen is similar to that of the action screen (i.e. the map screen is 3d). Traveling between solar systems takes place through star lanes following the shortest path (for more information and video see previous post).

On the upper left part of the screen there is a group of toggles. In the image above, the toggle which shows faction borders is on.

On the upper left part of the screen there is a group of toggles. In the image above the toggle which shows the names of the solar systems is on.

On the upper left part of the screen there is a group of toggles. In the image above the toggle which shows the player’s fleet is on.

When the player hovers on a solar system the shortest lane path is shown on the map and additional information like the time it will take to traverse the lanes appears on a panel on the lower right part of the screen.

Thank you for reading.

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Fleet Retrofit & Shipyard

Posted on January 28, 2021by Tensorial

In this article I will write about Fleet refitting and the Shipyard. The retrofit and shipyard screens are two similar screens that share information about the condition of player’s fleet or intel on non-player fleets and can be used for upgrading, repairing or purchasing and selling spaceships.

But before I dive into the details, a few things about the organization of fleets in Stellar insurgency which goes as follows:

Faction->Fleet->Squadron->Spacecraft

Each Faction contains a number of fleets, each fleet contains a number of squadrons and each squadron is comprising a number of spacecrafts. Large ships (like battleships) are one squadron units and small ships (eg. fighters or bombers) usually are contained in squadrons of four.

The fleet retrofit screen can be accessed with the fleet button in the action scene menu. The retrofit screen is split into three areas. The left area contains a list with all players squadrons, the right area contrails a list with non-player squadrons that lie within the player’s sensor range and the middle area has all the available info of the focused squadron (see below). This consists of all the available components and their stats (how much info will be shown from non-player squadrons depends on the level of sensors and whether these ships are within sensor range).

There are a few things that we can do in the retrofit screen.

Receive information about player and non-player spacecrafts including their loaded components and the stats of those components. Rotate or zoom in/out the focused ship (or squadron).
Enable/Disable the components that consume energy (eg. shields energy, weapons stealth field, etc).
Upgrade existing or install new components. There are two kinds of component slots. The first kind is a fixed component slot like engine, armor or hull slot that can be upgraded with a new component of the same type (obviously it is not possible to install a hull in engines compartment). The second type is a slot that can be refitted with components of various types eg. Jump Inhibitor, ECM, Solar Panel and many other as long as there is an available upgrade in one of our fleet’s cargo bays.
Repair the hull and armor of our ships. This actions requires certain amount of raw materials that should be available in our cargo bays. The amount of materials needed depends on the damage of the component.

Install, restore or upgrade components on our ship. In the above image the ship has a Probe Launcher slot which can be refitted with exploration probes or boarding probes from the fleet’s available cargo bays.

The Shipyard is similar to the retrofit screen but in order to access it, one of player’s ship has to be in orbit around an inhabited planet or an asteroid of a non-enemy faction with a Shipyard.

We have three ships around a planet so we can access its Shipyard

The Shipyard screen is similar to the Retrofit screen. The main difference is that the right list of squadrons shows the available ships for purchase that are offered from the faction that inhabits the planet or asteroid. In addition we can repair the hull and the armor of our ships without the need of raw materials if we have the required amount of credits.

We can purchase a squadron if we have the credits to pay the faction that inhabits the planet.

The armor component comprises of six parts one for each side of the ship. In the above image three out of six armor sides are damaged but we choose to repair only the front and back side armors. However in order to proceed we need the required raw materials stored in our cargo bays.

Hull can also be restored in four parts 25% 50% 75% and 100%. In the above image we want to repair the hull up to 75% percent. The required raw materials are also shown.

An enemy fleet is trapped within a mine field we placed earlier.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

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UI Update

Posted on December 12, 2020by Tensorial

This week, I decided to update the UI to a more modern version…